Adapt or die

This week I started reading a book my sister gave me for Christmas: The Gun by C. J. Chivers. I first learned about this book just before its publication date in October, when the author appeared for a long, fascinating interview on NPR's "Fresh Air," which you can listen to here.

The book is a history of the AK-47, and how dramatically this one weapon changed the way that wars are fought. As an owner of two of the myriad derivatives of the original form (I have a Romanian-made semi-automatic rifle chambered for .223, and a Russian-made semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun variant, the Saiga-12), I was eager to learn more about this story. However, the book's first 140 pages are spent laying out the 80 or so years of history of automatic weapons prior to Kalashnikov. This was completely unfamiliar ground to me.

What I found most interesting was how astonishingly slow even the most sophisticated armies of the day were to adopt their tactics to the new weaponry. Chivers asserts (page 113):

Military bureaucracies, as they considered incorporating machine guns into their armies, dawdled indecisively in every Western country but Germany. The thinking was fully blinkered. Senior officers recognized the effects of withering bursts of fire upon massed combatants, having heard reports of the felling of heaps of Arabs and Africans who advanced in formation toward machine guns. They were somehow unable to accept what might happen when such fire was directed against their own ranks.

Lest the reader disbelieve Chivers's claim that the world's most sophisticated military commanders were incredibly slow to figure this stuff out, he spends the next 25 pages providing the proof. His mention of "Arabs and Africans" is in reference to stories he has already told about how European colonizers in the 1880s and 1890s effectively annihilated more primitive armies of vastly larger numbers by simply mowing them down as they charged forward with their spears. It was slaughter of an efficiency and ferocity these opponents could not have even imagined when heading into the battle, with those at the rear having to clamber over piles of the bodies of the dead in order to take their turns at being gunned down.

So military commanders certainly understood the power of automatic weapons. But, as Chivers said, it somehow just could not sink into their skulls that their own men were just as vulnerable. In 1904, the Japanese skirmished with the Russians in Manchuria. Even after seeing wave after wave of men cut down, never getting anywhere near the Russian machine guns, the Japanese commanders kept ordering more troops to follow them until there were none left.

OK, so the Japanese are rather notorious for cherishing suidical acts of "courage" in warfare. They're an exception to how modern armies dealt with opponents' automatic weapons, right?

Nope. In World War I, despite having literally decades of experience with machine guns, the mighty British army was still training each recruit that the bayonet affixed to the end of his single-shot rifle was his most important weapon; practice with it constituted the majority of pre-deployment training.

Two years into the first major machine-gun war, the British had still not changed the basic tactic that they had used to attack an entrenched enemy for as long as anybody could remember: sending masses of men charging at the defended positions. This was done knowing that those in front would suffer high casualty rates. But given how long it took to reload older rifles, a sufficiently large number of soldiers would eventually be able to overrun the enemy. In retrospect, it is blindingly obvious that this same approach was sheer folly when the enemy had guns that spat out hundreds of rounds per minute. Somehow, though, this self-evident truth just could not penetrate the concrete, old-fashioned thinking of senior military types, and they kept trying the same thing over and over again, despite repeated heavy losses and little gain.

The insanty reached its zenith on July 1, 1916, in the Battle of the Somme:

Watching from behind their machine guns, German soldiers were amazed. They had weathered fear and frustration through the shelling, waiting for the immense attack they knew was coming. As they peered over their parapets in the sudden quiet, the sights astonished them: thousands upon thousands of men, strolling exposed in neat lines.... "The English came walking, as though they were going to the theatre or as though they were on a parade ground," one German soldier said. "We felt they were mad." Another saw waves in which the men were so densely packed they "were like trees in a wood." Some of the Germans whooped. They were professional soldiers, the product of a German military system in which conscription was nearly universal.... They had never seen such targets before. The time for killing was at hand. One German machine-gun team alone would fire at least twenty-five thousand rounds.

In this withering fire, a Yorkshire battalion, Company A of the Seventh Green Howards, lost 108 of 140 men in minutes. An even more galling destruction fell upon the Tyneside Irish, a brigade of three thousand men, which had to cross almost a mile of open ground behind its own front-line trenches just to reach the British edge of No-Man's-Land. It took twenty minutes under fire to complete this march. Bullets slammed into the soldiers the entire way. The surviving Irish were ordered on, to press the attack across five hundred yards of open space.... Of the three thousand men who had stepped off, fifty fighting men remained. The New Army, Lord Kitchener's grand two-year project to replace the battered British Expeditionary Force with volunteers from all walks of British life--the mines, the factories, the clerks, the schoolhouses--was being cut down in an hour. The Dervishes had fought this foolishly. So had Japanese soldiers, who saw duty in death. Now the British army was doing it, too.

A darker hour for England would be hard to measure. By one estimate, 30,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded in the first sixty minutes. The midday tally reached 50,000. By the end of the day, 21,000 British soldiers were dead, 35,000 wounded, and 600 more had been taken prisoner. The survivors were emotionally devastated. One lance corporal, a signaler who had not been assigned to advance, watched his friends try to cross, only, he said, to be "mown down like meadow grass." He stayed back, weeping.

(Chivers, pp 133-134.)

This colossal failure finally, finally caught the attention of the Allied commanders. It slowly dawned on them that maybe charging massed men across open fields into the teeth of machine gun batteries wasn't the best idea.



Why this historical reflection? Well, even those who have disdain for overly casual or frequent analogies between poker and life in general must admit that poker and war have much in common, and much to learn from each other. One particular truth that they share is this: If you do not adapt your tactics to those of your opponents, you will be defeated.

I see this as having both micro and macro applications. In the micro setting, you have to adapt to the players currently at the table. As an extreme example, I remember a guy who used to come in to the Hilton poker room occasionally. His approach was extreme: He would buy in for $100, then repeatedly move all-in blind--without looking at his cards--until he had either built up $400-$500, or had lost about the same amount. If the former, he would move to an aggressive but at least fairly rational style of play. If the latter, he'd laugh it off, decide it wasn't his day, and go home.

This immensely frustrated some of the other players--particularly the older, nittier crowd. It both offended them as the "wrong" way to play poker, and intimidated them. Their desire for a slow, conservative, low-variance approach was utterly frustrated by this tactic. In the presence of such a wild player, it is clearly a mistake to respond by tightening up even further, but that is exactly what they would do. They would welcome the chance to call his blind all-in, but only if they had aces or kings in the hole. But by doing so, they left lots of money on the table. In order to profit from that extreme degree of looseness, you have to loosen up yourself. A hand like K-J offsuit is a substantial favorite over a random hand, and one you should be willing to take against him (at least one on one; having other players also calling complicates things, however).

As more familiar examples, if you repeatedly try to bluff a calling station, you are just giving away money. If you back down to an aggressive, bluff-happy bully every time, you might as well just hand him your wallet and go spend your time doing something more enjoyable than watch your stack of chips erode.

Maybe the poker situation that most resembles the history related by Chivers is the unwillingness to let go of pocket aces or kings in the face of unmistakable evidence that they are no longer good. When the table rock calls you on the flop and check-raises you on the river when a third diamond falls, aces dwindle in stature to nearly nothing. But time after time you can see people react to such a counterattack by stubbornly moving all-in, throwing good money after bad, refusing to accept the reality of the situation. They might as well be a British recruit trying to charge an entrenched German machine gun with a bayonet.

Then there is the macro sense of adaptation, too. Poker is a game that evolves over time, and one must change with it. The first poker strategy book I ever read (because of its prominence in James McManus's Positively Fifth Street, which was the first poker book of any kind that I read) was Cloutier and McEvoy's Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold'Em, published in 1997. Consider some of the advice that the authors give on pages 152-156 about how to play ace-king. (The "I" here is clearly Cloutier, with McEvoy acting sort of as his amanuensis.)

Say that you have raised with Ace-King from a front spot and one or two people have called. The board comes with 9-7-3, three suits. What do you do with your A-K? I don't care whether or not I've raised before the flop, I never bet A-K when the flop comes three rags....

By betting you have shut off your opportunity to get a free turn card and
possibly make your hand. If you check-check, you have found out information without it costing you anything. An aggressive player like Phil Hellmuth [Grump notes: It is a separately amazing thing that Hellmuth--now taunted for being overly passive--was once considered to be an unusually aggressive player.] may have a tendency to fire on the flop head-up; that's his style of play. But you can burn up a lot of chips that way. I don't continue with A-K unless I flop a hand that relates to it in some way, a hand with some strength in it....

Now, let's change the scenario: The action is two-handed, but you're sitting behind the other player.... The flop comes three rags and your opponent checks to you. You don't bet: You check right back at him. That way, you're not shutting yourself out. For example, what will you do if he checks, you bet, and then he raises you? What are you going to do with your hand then? So, you may as well take this opportunity that his check has given you and get a free card by checking along....

A lot of players will fire at the pot one time in these types of situations. When they see a baby flop, here they come! But I think they're making a mistake when they do that: You have to give an opponent credit for having something to have been able to call your raise to start with....

If a guy bets in front of me against that nine-high flop when I'm holding A-K, he wins the pot. It's that simple. I don't care what he has, he wins it right there.

Perhaps that advice constituted "championship" play in 1997; I don't pretend to know. But I do know that trying to play either a cash game or a tournament today by following that recipe will get you run over by nearly every player at the table. They will quickly figure out your transparent strategy, bluff you out of your shorts, and not pay you off when you actually do make a hand. You will not win the tournament. You will not make the final table. You will probably not even cash. You will have circles run around you. This is not just bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight; it's bringing a knife to a machine-gun fight, and you'll be shot to pieces. There is a reason that you don't hear about Cloutier winning any tournaments lately.



Now if you'll excuse me, it's Saturday night of Super Bowl weekend, the Guest Gauge is "very busy," due to the confluence of that game, a UFC match at Mandalay Bay, and the Chinese New Year. I go off in search of poker players foolishly charging across open fields with their pocket aces.

More Hellmuth hating? Yep.

This week I've been doing a lot more exploring of poker blogs than I've done in a long time, trying to find some other reliably good ones to add to my regular reading. Along the way, I stumbled across a February 14 post by T. J. Cloutier, at http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php?option=com_simpleblog&task=view&id=2920. He has a handful of Phil Hellmuth stories to tell.

But here's the bit that caught my attention (emphasis added):

I used to sit down and try to coach Phil about his conduct, suggesting that
he not say some of the things he says to other players. But after talking with
him, I can tell you that he can't help himself.

What bullshit.

I've heard Hellmuth himself make similar claims in interviews: He just can't stop himself.

It's complete bullshit.

What's more, Phil has spent enough time with a therapist (not to mention living with a psychiatrist wife) and in meditation training that he has to know that it's bullshit when he says that he's incapable of suppressing his tantrums. (I'll cut Cloutier a break; he may not have thought it through enough. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he thinks he is telling the truth when he says that Hellmuth "can't help himself." He's not lying; he's just wrong.)

Dogs that are infected with rabies genuinely can't help trying to bite; the virus compels them to it. But human beings--at least those without organic brain damage--choose their behaviors.

There's a simple test one could do in theory that would demonstrate this. Suppose somebody offered Phil Hellmuth $100,000,000 if he could get through a tournament without saying a single negative word about any opponent. You could even stipulate that when he loses a hand, he is allowed to utter no words other than "Nice hand." If he says anything else, even once, he loses the 100 mil.

Could he do it? Of course he could.

It's all a matter of whether he chooses to control his impulses or not. And that, in turn, is largely a matter of how badly he actually wants to do it, and what incentives there are for and against changing.

One way that people help themselves with major lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation or weight loss is to set up tangible rewards and penalties, whether financial or otherwise. Hellmuth could very easily do the same for his own conduct, if he genuinely wanted to change it.

Suppose you were Phil Ivey or Doyle Brunson and had money to burn. Hellmuth comes to you with a variation of the arrangement I suggested above. He wants to set up incentives for himself to help him focus on maintaining good control. He asks you to enter a prop bet with him. If he can make it through the next tournament on 100% good behavior, as outlined previously, you pay him. But if he blows it even once, he has to pay you. You'd have to negotiate the odds, of course; maybe he'd lay $500,000 to your $1 million. You might readily take that, figuring that even with cash on the line, he's more than 2:1 to have at least a minor eruption.

The details and odds don't really matter to my point, though. The point is that Hellmuth has the means to make such an arrangement, and there are undoubtedly lots of players who would rush to get a piece of that action. In fact, they'd line the rails, egging him on, trying to induce a blow-up so that they could get paid off.

So why doesn't Phil set up something like this? That's easy: Because he doesn't really, truly, deeply, sincerely want to change.

You could pretty easily infer this from the fact that he has been behaving the same way for nearly 20 years in the public eye. If he wanted to change, he'd have done it by now.

But for further evidence, just look at the kinds of things he says about his explosions. For example, here's part of his column after he threw a fit at the first taping of "Poker After Dark" (from http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/18/8357):

Having just watched myself on television (Wednesday, Jan. 3), I'm compelled
to say that I'm embarrassed by my "Poker Brat" conduct. In the first-ever Poker
After Dark television show - aired on NBC six days a week, all year long, at 2
a.m. - they showed an unedited seven-minute "Phil Hellmuth tirade." However,
admittedly, it made for some pretty darn good television!

See? He can't just apologize and leave it at that--he has to give himself an out, saying that it made for good television.

He goes on with more halfway apologies, intermixed with excuses and shifting at least partial blame to the other players:

It seems that I was the one who crossed the line, and I apologize to
everyone involved - including all of the television viewers - for my conduct. I
was right that I wasn't getting the silence that I had requested, but as Duke
later said, "I would call that one of the biggest overreactions I've ever
seen."

...Then, Seed innocently joked, "You asked us to be quiet so that you could
talk!" Then, Hansen made an innocent joke, and finally, Sheikhan said something,
as well. Now, as the silence evaporated into constant chatter, I began to lose
my cool (again, I thought proper poker etiquette was not being observed).

He just doesn't get it. If he wanted to admit wrongdoing and accept responsibility, he wouldn't pad the apology with weasel words ("It seems that I was the one who crossed the line," "I was right that I wasn't getting the silence that I had requested" and "I thought proper poker etiquette was not being observed"). He lets himself off the hook, or at least tries to put others on the hook with him. This is not the attitude of somebody who wants to make a clean break with what he has become.

One might also ask why he is apologizing to viewers after saying that it made for "great television." There's a deep contradiction there. It is most logically resolved by the conclusion that he's not actually sorry. How many times can you hear somebody say he is "sorry" for something, while he (1) makes excuses and justifications for it, and (2) continues to do that same thing at every opportunity, before you call "bullshit" on the phony apologies?

Note also the gross irony of Phil Hellmuth complaining that "proper poker etiquette was not being observed." Ha! Yeah, Phil, we all believe that that value is of paramount importance to you. In fact, the poker players of the world have taken a vote and elected you to be the Supreme Sheriff of Poker Etiquette.

Here's another example (from http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/18/6802):

OK, Phil, no more sour grapes! You're in the penthouse suite at the
Radisson Resort and Casino in beautiful Aruba. Your books, DVDs, and new "365
tips" calendar (jfturner.com) are flying off the shelves. You have a good amount
of fortune and fame - nine World Series of Poker (WSOP) titles. Why, then, do
you have to lose it, and act like a jerk, after taking a bad beat? Why leap out
of your chair, with your arms flailing, and utter, "What the hell is going on
here?" And then, worse yet, say to your opponent, "How could you have played
that hand so poorly?"

Once more, I'm embarrassed by my own conduct, even more so because this is
the UltimateBet.com Poker Classic in Aruba, and I'm an ambassador for UB. I
should have said, "Nice hand, sir," and calmly walked away from the table. I
should have shown the class that a WSOP champion ought to show. But, I am, after
all, the Poker Brat! (Still, I can't say I'm proud of it.)

Here is the hand that eliminated me, and it set me off a bit.

Again you can see that he just can't manage an undiluted, unadulterated apology--let alone a public commitment to reforming himself. He says that it set him off "a bit" (a phrase he repeats later in the column), minimizing the significance of his conduct.

But most significant, I think, is the self-justification contained here: "But, I am, after all, the Poker Brat!" This is akin to the line in the other column about making great television.

Implicit in both is the fact that Hellmuth makes a ton of money from the notoriety generated from these blow-ups. This is from a dual effect. First is the fame, resulting in book deals and product endorsements. Second is the intimidation of other players at the table, who don't want to be on the receiving end of a Hellmuthian tirade.

He knows deep down that he makes money by being a jerk. He has in place a system of perverse incentives. Ultimately, he chooses to keep doing what has always brought him success. The money means more to him than being a decent human being and a gentleman at the poker table. So be it.

I just wish that both he and his friends would admit the truth about the situation: He chooses to be this way. He chooses it over, and over, and over again. I think that those of us who care about poker conduct have an obligation to call "bullshit" every time we come across an assertion, either from Hellmuth himself or from enablers like Cloutier, that he "can't help himself."

Of course he can. He just chooses not to.

Poker gems, #36

T. J. Cloutier, as quoted in Larry W. Phillips, The Tao of Poker, p. 196:

Just because you lost the last five hands in a row doesn't mean that you're going to lose the sixth one. The odds never change, the odds on the sixth hand are the same as they were on the first one. But you don't feel the same about it--nobody ever does.

Poker gems, #16

An exchange from NBC's "Poker After Dark," September 13, 2007. The set-up: At the end of the last show, Phil Hellmuth lost a big pot to Erik Seidel, because Hellmuth slow-played a flopped two pair (queens and threes), and Seidel caught an ace on the river for a better two pair (queens and aces). Seidel, with position, bet his top pair/top kicker all the way, and Hellmuth just checked and called. Hellmuth's whiny rant started at the end of the last show, and continues into this episode. Nobody at the table has a speck of sympathy for him.

Doyle Brunson: All you had to do was pop him [i.e., check-raise on the flop] and you'd be stacking the chips.

Hellmuth: I understand that. I mean, you know, I mean, I didn't want to pop him. I wanted to let him go for his money. It's so sick. And then he value-bet it on the river. That's so sick. Wow. [Value-betting top two pair on the river, in position, against an opponent who has been completely passive through the hand. Yeah, Phil, that's just a terrible play!]

Seidel: Anybody have Phil's nanny's phone number? She'll know how to calm him down.

Hellmuth: You're not even in the same league, Erik. [For the record, Hellmuth is a slightly more successful tournament player than Seidel; he has 11 WSOP bracelets to Seidel's 8, and a little over $9 million in total tournament winnings to Seidel's $7 million+. Seems like pretty much the same league to me, but what do I know?] Just be happy the deck saves you every pot we play. I keep slow-playing it, and you've sucked out on me like five in a row that I've slow-played, all just weird beats. And I could have won all five pots, but I want to let you...

T. J. Cloutier: I want to make a comment on that. I would think the solution to that would be not to slow-play it.

[More whining from Hellmuth, which I don't have the stomach to transcribe.]

Cloutier: Phil, that's why you make every show. You whine better than anybody alive.

Seidel: My little niece gave me a pacifier for you, and I was going to bring it, but I forgot.

[Yet more whining from Hellmuth.]

Brunson: Yeah, he's [meaning Seidel] just been lucky for 30 or 40 years.